Welding processes vary considerably depending upon the type of material being welded. Some materials are more easily welded under a variety of conditions, while other materials require special processes in order to achieve a structurally sound joint without degrading the surrounding substrate material.
Common arc welding generally utilizes a consumable electrode as the feed material. In order to provide protection from the atmosphere for the molten material in the weld pool, an inert cover gas or a flux material may be used when welding many alloys including, e.g. steels, stainless steels, and nickel based alloys. Inert and combined inert and active gas processes include gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) (also known as tungsten inert gas (TIG)) and gas metal arc welding (GMAW) (also known as metal inert gas (MIG) and metal active gas (MAG)). Flux protected processes include submerged arc welding (SAW) where flux is commonly fed, flux cored arc welding (FCAW) where the flux is included in the core of the electrode, and shielded metal arc welding (SMAW) where the flux is coated on the outside of the filler electrode.
The use of energy beams as a heat source for welding is also known. For example, laser energy has been used to melt pre-placed stainless steel powder onto a carbon steel substrate with powdered flux material providing shielding of the melt pool. The flux powder may be mixed with the stainless steel powder or applied as a separate covering layer. To the knowledge of the inventors, flux materials have not been used when welding superalloy materials.
It is recognized that superalloy materials are among the most difficult materials to weld due to their susceptibility to weld solidification cracking and strain age cracking. The term “superalloy” is used herein as it is commonly used in the art; i.e., a highly corrosion and oxidation resistant alloy that exhibits excellent mechanical strength and resistance to creep at high temperatures. Superalloys typically include a high nickel or cobalt content. Examples of superalloys include alloys sold under the trademarks and brand names Hastelloy, Inconel alloys (e.g. IN 738, IN 792, IN 939), Rene alloys (e.g. Rene N5, Rene 80, Rene 142), Haynes alloys, Mar M, CM 247, CM 247 LC, C263, 718, X-750, ECY 768, 282, X45, PWA 1483 and CMSX (e.g. CMSX-4) single crystal alloys.
Weld repair of some superalloy materials has been accomplished successfully by preheating the material to a very high temperature (for example to above 1600° F. or 870° C.) in order to significantly increase the ductility of the material during the repair. This technique is referred to as hot box welding or superalloy welding at elevated temperature (SWET) weld repair, and it is commonly accomplished using a manual GTAW process. However, hot box welding is limited by the difficulty of maintaining a uniform component process surface temperature and the difficulty of maintaining complete inert gas shielding, as well as by physical difficulties imposed on the operator working in the proximity of a component at such extreme temperatures.
Some superalloy material welding applications can be performed using a chill plate to limit the heating of the substrate material; thereby limiting the occurrence of substrate heat affects and stresses causing cracking problems. However, this technique is not practical for many repair applications where the geometry of the parts does not facilitate the use of a chill plate.
FIG. 6 is a conventional chart illustrating the relative weldability of various alloys as a function of their aluminum and titanium content. Alloys such as Inconel® IN718 which have relatively lower concentrations of these elements, and consequentially relatively lower gamma prime content, are considered relatively weldable, although such welding is generally limited to low stress regions of a component. Alloys such as Inconel® IN939 which have relatively higher concentrations of these elements are generally not considered to be weldable, or can be welded only with the special procedures discussed above which increase the temperature/ductility of the material and which minimize the heat input of the process. A dashed line 80 indicates a recognized upper boundary of a zone of weldability. The line 80 intersects 3 wt. % aluminum on the vertical axis and 6 wt. % titanium on the horizontal axis. Alloys outside the zone of weldability are recognized as being very difficult or impossible to weld with known processes, and the alloys with the highest aluminum content are generally found to be the most difficult to weld, as indicated by the arrow.
It is also known to utilize selective laser melting (SLM) or selective laser sintering (SLS) to melt a thin layer of superalloy powder particles onto a superalloy substrate. The melt pool is shielded from the atmosphere by applying an inert gas, such as argon, during the laser heating. These processes tend to trap the oxides (e.g. aluminum and chromium oxides) that are adherent on the surface of the particles within the layer of deposited material, resulting in porosity, inclusions and other defects associated with the trapped oxides. Post process hot isostatic pressing (HIP) is often used to collapse these voids, inclusions and cracks in order to improve the properties of the deposited coating. The application of these processes is also limited to horizontal surfaces due to the requirement of pre-placing the powder.
Laser microcladding is a 3D-capable process that deposits a small, thin layer of material onto a surface by using a laser beam to melt a flow of powder directed toward the surface. The powder is propelled toward the surface by a jet of gas, and when the powder is a steel or alloy material, the gas is argon or other inert gas which shields the molten alloy from atmospheric oxygen. Laser microcladding is limited by its low deposition rate, such as on the order of 1 to 6 cm3/hr. Furthermore, because the protective argon shield tends to dissipate before the clad material is fully cooled, superficial oxidation and nitridation may occur on the surface of the deposit, which is problematic when multiple layers of clad material are necessary to achieve a desired cladding thickness.
For some superalloy materials in the zone of non-weldability there is no known commercially acceptable welding or repair process. Furthermore, as new and higher alloy content superalloys continue to be developed, the challenge to develop commercially feasible joining processes for superalloy materials continues to grow.